IT is World Tourism Day on Saturday, so time to talk tourism.
I first went up the world famous Sani Pass many years ago, one of my many journeys up the mountains to cover an expedition that involved a group of young women hiking from the Royal Natal National Park to Bushman’s Nek.
It was a long and very arduous walk and I have absolutely no idea why they were doing it, although the fact that no one had done it before probably had something to do with it.
Sani Pass Top was one of their pit stops and I vaguely remember one of ‘those’ evenings in the pub, the highest in Africa at 2,874m (just around the corner is the highest peak in southern Africa, Thabana Ntlenyane at 3,482m).
The next time we went up the Pass was with some Canadian friends of ours who had asked us to arrange something fairly adventurous for them. The famous (or is that infamous) Roof of Africa route had been on my bucket list for some time and I saw this as an opportunity to achieve my dream.
We negotiated the Sani Pass (one does not simply drive up this remarkable piece of road, one ‘negotiates’ it) to the Top, where we stayed and had another of those evenings (it must be something to do with the altitude). We drove on to Mokhotlong, the nearest and only town, to stock up on all the many things one is not allowed to take into Lesotho, and then we hit the Roof of Africa.
This is the highest road in Africa and it took us‘over the top’ to Butha Buthe on the other side of the country, with visits to the great Katse Dam, the Ts’ehlanyane National Park, where we stayed, and the Bokong National Park.
It’s a magnificent route through magnificent country and should really be done at least once in one’s lifetime. We’re biased, of course, because my wife is from Lesotho, in fact three generations of her family are from there, all traders.
Anyway, two wildlife highlights were a low swooping bearded vulture, the most spectacular of all the vultures, and Sloggett’s ice rat, a rather nondescript, but engaging character that lives around the Sani Top.
Why the Sani Pass and Lesotho (apart from World Tourism Day)? Because the subject of the Pass came up in conversation the other day. The good news is that it is not going to be tarred after all, but properly gravelled.
This was announced recently by the Department of Environmental Affairs and Tourism, allaying fears that the Pass would become just another road. The gravelling is good news indeed for it is not a comfortable drive at the moment, but then who’s looking for comfort if you’re looking for adventure. Sala hantle! Cheers!
PS: We had a monkey raid the other day and caught one of them in the kitchen – he was perched there eating a bread roll and ignoring the fresh lemon meringue pie next to it. Could he have been confused about his new Tim Noakes diet, perhaps?
